The Private Library Part 6

'For small libraries, not exceeding 3000 to 4000 volumes, the letters of the alphabet may be used for the cases, and small figures for the shelves, on the principle of the greater including the less, the letters having a more important appearance. But in larger libraries, where there is a chance of the alphabet being doubled or trebled, one regular series of large numbers for the cases, with small letters for the shelves, is to be preferred.'

Books should be marked in pencil, with a shelf letter and a case number.

Long sets of books need be numbered in the first volume only.

In the case of collections of pamphlets each item ought to be separately catalogued.

The catalogue should complement the arrangement on the shelves, and not be tautological.

Tables of contents of collected editions given in catalogue.

A synoptical table of contents should be prefixed to the catalogue.

For those who desire a rough outline of headings into which a library usually cla.s.sifies itself, I will name one. The briefest is as follows:--(1) Theology, (2) Philosophy and Science, (3) Art, (4) Political Economy, (5) Law, (6) History and Literature.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] No bookshelves ought to be beyond the reach of a moderately tall person.

[40] 'The books were numbered consecutively throughout the library, and, therefore, when rearranged, they needed all to be renumbered. All hands were pressed into this service, and we read that on the 15th of February, 1667-68, Pepys himself, his wife, and Deb. Willett were busy until near midnight "t.i.tleing" the books for the year, and setting them in order.

They all tired their backs, but the work was satisfactory. . . . . (_See ante_, p. 78.)

'The books are arranged in eleven curious old mahogany bookcases, which are mentioned in the _Diary_ under date August 24, 1666. "Up and dispatched several businesses at home in the morning, and then comes Sympson to set up my other new presses for my books, and so he and I fell into the furnishing of my new closett, and taking out the things out of my old, and I kept him with me all day, and he dined with me, and so all the afternoon till it was quite darke hanging things, that is, my maps and pictures and draughts, and setting up my books, . . . . to my most extraordinary satisfaction."'--Wheatley, _Pepys and the World he lived in_, pp. 83-4.

[41] _Library Journal_, August, 1878.

_Bookcases._

The chief faults of bookcases arise from their being designed and made by men who have never used a book. A first requisite in bookcases is simplicity, bearing in mind that the books are the ornament and not the bookcases. The cabinet-maker, among other things, is too fond of embellishments, and sacrifices s.p.a.ce to what seem odd angularities and irregularities.

No bookcase should be above eight and a half feet in height. No ladder should be necessary to get at books. If books are 'skied' up to the ceiling they must suffer from the heated air. It is heat, not gas merely, which damages books.

A room may be made to look very beautiful by being surrounded with fumed oak bookcases, eight feet high. The shelves should be made movable with Tonks' patent.[42] Mr. Gladstone[43] speaks of the looseness and the tightness of movable shelves, the weary arms, the aching fingers, and the broken finger-nails. This can be avoided by the use of the patent here named. The bottom cases should be deeper and wider, to take quartos and folios, but there should always be an extra shelf for turning a folio section into an octavo section. Nineteen-twentieths of the books in circulation are octavos and smaller volumes. On each side of the fireplace there should be an arm projecting about four feet and a half.

The inner side of this should have a comfortable reading-seat, and on the outer side, farthest from the fire, there may be shelves for books.

If the structural arrangements of the room admit of these projecting arms being placed, without sacrifice of comfort, at a greater distance from the fireplace, the books may be placed on the upper part of the inner side as well, the lower part being used as a lounge.

It must be remembered that heat and excessive dryness are fatal to good bindings and, indeed, to all parts of a book, and therefore no bookcase should approach too near a fireplace, nor should bookcases be placed backing upon hot-water pipes. The shelves should be edged with leather and such leather must _not_ be stiffened by cardboard or brown paper--simply leather, and there should be a roller shutter of silk to draw down in front of the books during absence from home. The cases[44]

should everywhere be perfectly flush, without any sort of protruding ornament. It will be found a great advantage to make the framework of the various cases of equal dimensions, so that the shelves can be made transferable. In estimating the extent of shelving which it may be necessary to provide, we may calculate that in an ordinary library a s.p.a.ce two feet high and two feet wide will, on an average, contain about thirty-five volumes, and it may be estimated roughly that every thousand volumes in a library will require about a hundred square feet of shelving.

If fixed shelves are made, the usual height will be--[45]

For folios 18 to 21 inches.

" quartos 12 " 15 "

" octavos 10 "

" smaller sizes 7 "

These s.p.a.ces will allow ample room for the average sizes. The 'Atlas'

folios and 'Elephant' folios are best accommodated in single shelves, in which they may be flat, or on trays or table cases.[46] Bear in mind always to allow sufficient s.p.a.ce for expansion. Nothing causes more disorder than insufficient shelf accommodation. All cases should be numbered and lettered, that is, each section should have a number, and each shelf a letter. For the accommodation of expensive bindings or rare books and MSS., a special case may sometimes be required. Very beautiful specimens of such may be seen sketched in the books of Chippendale, Sheraton, and Heppelwhite, but it is in all cases better to avoid gla.s.s fronts and adopt ornamental bra.s.s wire work if any special protection be needed.

The late Mr. Blades, a great expert in this matter, said, 'It is a mistake to imagine that keeping the best-bound volumes in a gla.s.s-doored bookcase is a preservative. The damp air will certainly penetrate, and as the absence of ventilation will a.s.sist formation of mould, the books will be worse off than if they had been placed in open shelves. If securing be desirable, by all means abolish the gla.s.s and place ornamental bra.s.s wire work in its stead.'[47]

'It is more important to see that the shelves intended for choice and richly bound books should be covered with leather, and expressly such as are intended for books of large sizes. In the case of books of special value, the leather should be well padded, should be of the best quality, and should have a polished surface.'[48]

In the _Nineteenth Century_ for March, 1890, already quoted from, Mr.

Gladstone wrote upon 'Books, and the Housing of them.' This paper showed a sound grasp of the subject and showed Mr. Gladstone in a new and very interesting light. Appended are some extracts from this paper, all of which I think experts would agree to, _except the fixed shelves_, and here, I think, any one who has handled books very much will be at issue with Mr. Gladstone. He himself says:--'I have recommended that, as a rule, the shelves be fixed, and have given reasons for the adoption of such a rule. I do not know whether it will receive the sanction of authorities, and I make two admissions. First, it requires that each person owning and arranging a library should have a pretty accurate general knowledge of the size of his books. Secondly, it may be expedient to introduce here and there, by way of exception, a single movable shelf.'

Now, a man must be able not only to gauge very accurately the limits of his library and the various sizes of books, but he must be able to look into the future if he would safely embark on fixed shelves. And this is wholly impossible. Fixed shelves should only be adopted where cost has to be reduced to a minimum, but in the majority of instances movable shelves will be found preferable. The paragraphs which deal with bookcases in Mr. Gladstone's article may here be given:--

'The question of economy, for those who from necessity or choice consider it at all, is a very serious one. It has been a fashion to make bookcases ornamental. Now, books want for and in themselves no ornament at all. . . The man who looks for society in his books will readily perceive that, in proportion as the face of his bookcase is occupied by ornament, he loses that society; and conversely, the more that face approximates to a sheet of book-backs, the more of that society he will enjoy. And so it is that three great advantages come hand in hand, and, as will be seen, reach their maximum together: the sociability of books, minimum cost in providing for them, and ease of access to them.

'In order to attain these advantages, two conditions are fundamental.

First, the shelves must, as a rule, be fixed; secondly, the cases, or a large part of them, should have their side against a wall, and thus, projecting into the room for a convenient distance, they should be of twice the depth needed for a single line of books, and should hold two lines, one facing each way. Twelve inches is a fair and liberal depth for two rows of octavos. The books are thus thrown into stalls, but stalls after the manner of a stable. . . . This method of dividing the longitudinal s.p.a.ce by projections at right angles to it, if not very frequently used, has long been known. A great example of it is to be found at Trinity College, Cambridge, and is the work of Sir Christopher Wren. He has kept these cases down to a very moderate height; for he doubtless took into account that great heights require long ladders, and that the fetching and use of these greatly add to the time consumed in getting or replacing a book.'

It must here be added that Mr. Gladstone's plan is much more fitted for a large public library than for the library of a private person, for whom he is prescribing. Though the library in the form of an annexe[49]

is in many ways an ideal form for housing a large library, yet these are hardly likely to be in the majority, and most people find that they have to house their books in a circ.u.mscribed s.p.a.ce, with no room for such bays and projections as he suggests except perhaps one by the fireplace.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Tonks' fittings are specially adapted for the shelves of book-cases or other shelves, the adjustment of which has, from time to time, to be varied to suit the varying requirements of a library, &c. The method hitherto generally adopted for such shelves is to support them at each end by two studs, the heads of which are mortised into the shelf, and the pins driven or otherwise fitted into holes two or more inches apart, bored in two rows into the upright frames; these holes are very seldom accurately fitted to the pins, and even where so done in the first instance, from the shrinking or expansion of the wood, they soon become too large or too small for the pins, and the alteration of the adjustment of a shelf is thereby rendered an extremely troublesome operation. The patent fittings remedy this, and save both time and trouble; in place of the rows of holes so far apart, metal strips perforated at intervals of three-quarters of an inch for the reception of the very simple but strong metal plates, which take the place of the old studs, are mortised in and screwed to the frames. The insertion, at the required intervals, of the plates into the perforations in these strips is made instantaneously, consequently the position of a shelf can be easily altered without an irritating expense of trouble, and waste of time. The thinness of the plates renders any mortising in the shelf unnecessary, and the small intervals between the perforations in the strips enables the whole s.p.a.ce occupied by the shelves to be used most economically. These fittings, when used with a shelf sufficiently strong itself to bear the weight, will support without strain more than half a ton.

[43] _Nineteenth Century_, March, 1890.

[44] Edwards, _Memoirs of Libraries_, ii., 736.

[45] THE SIZES OF BOOKS.--The a.s.sociated Librarians of Great Britain decided upon a uniform and arbitrary scale for the measurement and description of the sizes of books. In consequence of the many and varied sizes of papers now manufactured, the terms folio, quarto or 4to., octavo or 8vo., twelvemo or 12mo., and so on, as indicating the number of folds in the printed sheets, can no longer be relied upon as a definite guide to the sizes of books, hence the change, as follows:--

Large folio la. fol. over 18 inches.

Folio fol. below 18 "

Small folio sm. fol. " 13 "

Large octavo la. 8vo. " 11 "

Octavo 8vo. " 9 "

Small octavo sm. 8vo. " 8 "

Duodecimo 12mo. " 8 "

Decimo octavo 18mo. is 6 "

Minimo mo. below 6 "

Large quarto la. 4to. " 15 "

Quarto 4to. " 11 "

Small quarto sm. 4to. " 8 "

[46] Edwards, _Memoirs of Libraries_, ii., 739.

[47] Blades, _Enemies of Books_.

[48] Edwards, ii., 737.